Islamabad, Pakistan: In 2014, the founding chairman of PTI Imran Khan announced a movement of Civil Disobedience. He burnt utility bills and ordered his followers not to pay utility bills to the state. He also announced that his followers living abroad should bypass legal banking channels and practice illegal means such as Hawala and Hundi to send money to their relatives in Pakistan. His statement was used against Pakistan thereafter when FATF was investigating the system of fund transfers to and from Pakistan.
At that time he was supported by all all-powerful cadre of the country therefore the government of former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif could not take any legal action against him for abetting the public to exercise illegal means of transfer of money to Pakistan. Even then when he was all all-powerful and practically untouchable person in Pakistan, nobody among his followers stopped paying utility bills and his movement of civil disobedience failed within a month. The time has changed and the power cadre that brought him in power is no longer available to him. His popularity had nosedived and his engross in the masses had vanished away. Now he is living with only lofty claims and statements and his latest call for civil disobedience would face the same fate that he is facing himself in jail.
There is no doubt left that the agenda of Imran Khan and his anarchist party is to harm the state and undermine its economic interests which have yet not changed. Even during his tenure as Prime Minister, Imran Khan made decisions that harmed the Pakistani economy, the consequences of which the nation is still suffering.
For some time now, he has been repeatedly threatening that if his demands are not met, he will call the nation for civil disobedience and will also prohibit Pakistanis living abroad from sending remittances through banking channels and following the illegal way of Hawala and Hundi to send money to their relatives in Pakistan. He knows his actions and his call for civil disobedience are not only against the country’s legal framework but can also seriously damage the economic stability and national unity and would also place overseas Pakistanis in danger when they use illegal means of transferring money from abroad to their country of origin. Due to such of his actions, his political opponents have reasons to claim that he has become an enemy of the country’s growing economy.
Let’s look at the civil disobedience movement in Pakistan. The Constitution of Pakistan guarantees public freedoms such as expression and peaceful assembly, but such activities that threaten national stability or affect the economy do not have any legal protection. Calls for civil disobedience, such as not paying taxes, not paying electricity and gas bills, etc., are considered illegal acts because they can disrupt public order or harm the economy.
The time will tell what action the sitting government of PMLN will take against him for instigating the public against the state. This time, PMLN will have no excuse to let him harm the economy. Last time in 2014, PMLN claimed it could not take any action against him as power cadres were playing him for the country as well as against the PMLN government of 2014.
